Is it Possible to Outrank Sites with High Competition Keywords?

[Lakbay]

Hello Fellow Warriors,

I am contemplating on targeting high competition keywords like "make money online" is this still possible? If so what type of techniques should i use? and how long would it take to put my site on page 1? Thanks in advance for your replies guys.

[patrich]

Of course, anything is possible. Ranking for high competition keywords just requires more work and more time, but it can still be done. Analyze the top sites for the search terms, look at their content, their site structure, inner linking structure, on page optimization and off page optimization, then find a way to beat them.

It isn't going to happen overnight though.

[The Expert]

There are some keywords that you will never outrank...no matter what you do. Most brand names fall into this category. I just don't think it's possible to take the #1 spot from "Pepsi" regardless of your best SEO Efforts and a six-figure budget to try and do it.

If it's not a brand name, though, it possible to take the #1 spot for almost anything....budget, manpower, and time permitting.

[Lakbay]

Hi Guys thanks to all of your comments, i am motivated to try and outrank sites using such strong keywords.

[warriorsaroj]

Nothing is impossible all you need to do is very hard work. Follow your competitors link wheel. Do a reasearch and see from wher they getting thier baclinks put your backlinks thier as well. Apart from this you will be needing a huge budgut as well to get that top position, because you will have to spend on various online stragies like SMO, PPC and others.

[samual james]

if you want to compete for this kind of keywords then you need to put much efforts to out rank your competitors. you need to add content on regular basis and create high quality backlinks which comes from authority websites. Analyse your competitors backlink and try to get links from the same source they are getting links. you can also try guest blogging on high pr sites.

[danlew]

I think it's possible, as long you have put all the hardwork and effort you have to outrank them. Don't just do the hardwork, play it smart.

[SinSimon]

It is possible, but with knowledge and efforts.

You don't want to be #1 necessary, but have highest readers number....

[strategic seo services]

Where there is a will, there is a way. It is possible, but it will take more resources (time, money, etc).

[pauley13]

Of course it is POSSIBLE. But not without a systematic approach.

In other words: before you can run, walk.

Google awards top ranking for such keywords to sites which have earned it. By this, I mean they have sufficient authority and Trust Rank grounded within a solid semantic environment that this keyword is part of.

1. Do deep keyword research of your whole niche.
2. Organize it based on organic competition, guaranteed yields, etc
3. Establish the best LSI keywords for each primary keyword you pick (including kwds related at the core, i.e. keywords which always have the same core part but extra words are added before and/or after)
4. Start with the easiest keywords first, but ideally ones which promise SOME yield, if conquered.
5. Monitor your progress using Google Analytics, see how long it takes to start getting traffic from them, and also which other kwds you ARE getting traffic from - analyze those keywords as well, of course.
6. As soon as you see that the time-to-rank starts decreasing, you can start optimizing for slightly harder keywords.
7. Continue like that until you see you're ranking 1-2 days after launching. This will be a good sign that your Trust Rank is growing.
8. You can now try hitting some of the harder ones and see if you can make the top-100 on them. If not, keep working the lower and medium ones.
9. Make sure to use a thorough on-page optimization technique, tag everything, use the H-tags correctly, link internally and externally to non-competitive authority sites (with correct anchors, naturally) - all that standard stuff.
10. Make especially sure to only strive for the highest quality links as that's the quickest way to get higher authority FASTER.

When working on content sites, given I can do 1 article/page per day, I normally manage to dominate these "heavy" keywords within 2-3 months - depending on the niche, of course. Your niche is quite competitive, but I did manage to conquer a few related keywords for a client, not that long ago, after only about 2 months. So IT IS POSSIBLE.

see also: Niche - 110 million results, only 33,000 searches - waste of time?

Hope this helps
paul

[Ryan Sterling]

You're better off making 2 sites with half the competition. Why play with the big dogs? There are thousands or possibly millions of untapped keywords just waiting for someone to build a website around.

Be smart, stay far away from competition. Go to open waters and set sail.

[TBInternetMarketing]

Anything is possible, but that one will be pretty tough. I'd suggest starting out with something else, or at least working on other projects at the same time, so that while you are trying to rank for this keyword, you at least will get some success in other areas. This is a really trick one to rank for purely because you will have bigger, wealthier companies throwing money at resources to get them there.
Good luck though.

[pbbiet]

Its not such a hard task even to rank in that niche i had a site which reach the top 5 in that niche but due to my carelessness its now slipped to page 2. Its neither a TLD neither a EMD still it ranked very well. SO its possible easily to rank in that niche all you need is lot of link building and Content.

[Laubster]

Originally Posted by Lakbay

Hello Fellow Warriors,

I am contemplating on targeting high competition keywords like "make money online" is this still possible? If so what type of techniques should i use? and how long would it take to put my site on page 1? Thanks in advance for your replies guys.

For a KW like that you might as well take multiple approaches. Host 3 sites on separate Class C IPs, do white hat for one, grey hat for one, and black hat on one. You never know what could happen, and you'll learn WAY more doing it this way versus just working hard.

Remember: work smart, not hard.